[1]Thursday night at 6:30, SNY favors us with the 25th installment of the Mets Yearbook series, the 1974 edition. If the editing hasn’t been too fierce, you can look forward to not just highlights not of the 1974 Mets season, but the Mets’ postseason trip to Japan (during which the recently acquired Joe Torre made his Mets quasi-debut). Why would a fifth-place, 71-91 team be invited to represent Major League Baseball? Because the invitations for such things would go out well in advance, and when the Mets were invited, they were still defending National League champions.
The aura of that crown wore off after about three seconds of 1974, the first losing campaign I ever experienced as a Mets fan (but, oh, surely not the last), yet as we’ve seen most of the 24 other times we’ve gazed lovingly upon a freshly revived Mets Yearbook, highlights are in the eye of the beholder of the highlights film viewer.
Which is to say bring on Mets Yearbook: 1974, the greatest public service any regional sports channel has ever rendered to its loyal viewers. Then stay tuned for an SNY special visiting with one of the kids who no doubt watched those 1974 Mets, recently inducted New York Mets Hall of Famer John Franco. It airs at 7:00.
Image courtesy of “Mario Mendoza…HOF lock” at Baseball-Fever. [2]